Boston College (11-11. 2-8 Atlantic Coast) and Pittsburgh (12-12, 2-9 ACC) are both looking to snap extended skids when they meet at Conte Forum tonight. Jim Hammett from Panther-Lair breaks down the matchup and details how Pitt has improved on its worst season in program history a year ago.
EA: Xavier Johnson has put together a stellar freshman campaign for Pitt, averaging 17 points and 4.4 assists per game. What are his strengths and weaknesses on both ends of the court?
JH: Xavier Johnson has turned into a much better player than I think anyone could have imagined. Obviously the Duke freshmen and guys like Coby White steal most of the headlines as freshmen in this league, but Johnson is right there with them. He was initially slated to go to Nebraska, but the assistant coach recruiting him switched jobs and thus made him available late in the process. It was very fortunate for Pitt because I am not sure where it would be without him.
Johnson’s strength on offense is certainly getting to the rim. He usually can get anywhere he wants on the court and even the very best teams Pitt has played have had trouble keeping him out of the lane. His outside shot looks weird, but it is surprisingly effective as he is hitting 39 percent from 3-point land.
Johnson is a willing passer, and is one of the top assist men in the league as well. Even with all his strengths, there are some weaknesses. He turns the ball over a lot. I think he tries to do too much sometimes, and it’s not uncommon for him to have five or more turnovers in a given game.
He also is an aggressive on-ball defender, which leads to him being in foul trouble quite a bit. Pitt needs him to play almost the whole game, but some silly fouls often keeps him on the bench longer than head coach Jeff Capel would like.
EA: With Malik Ellison out with an injury, Pitt rolled out its smallest starting lineup of the season against NC State on Saturday. How effective was the small-ball strategy?
As mentioned above, foul trouble played an issue. Pitt started a three guard look with Johnson, Trey McGowens, and Sidy N’dir and the trio rarely played together because of some foul trouble.
Even though it did not work out on Saturday, Pitt has employed smaller lineups all year long and a lot of that has to do with the inconsistent play but the big guys. If Pitt finds itself in a hole, Capel will turn loose a smaller, faster lineup to try to push the tempo. Pitt’s best rebounder is 6-foot-6 freshman Au’Diese Toney anyway, so they can get away with it. They lose the presence of a shot-blocker in the middle, but the small lineup typically is part of the plan for Pitt.
EA: What worked for the Panthers in their upsets of Florida State and Louisville?
I think the best thing going for Pitt in those wins was the play of Trey McGowens. He was a top-100 recruit coming out of high school, and played like it in both games. McGowens poured in 33 against Louisville, and followed it up with 30 against Florida State. The 33-point outburst set the Pitt freshman single-game scoring record.
McGowens is a 6-foot-3 slasher and does most of his scoring in the lane. He is also quite good at drawing contact as well, as he took 29 free-throws combined in the two wins.
Pitt’s losing streak of late has mostly been about teams just simply having more talent than the Panthers. Another reason, however, has been teams shutting down McGowens. He struggles to attack zone defenses since he can’t get to the lane as much and he is not getting to the foul line. He just hasn’t been effective of late as he was in early January.
Another component as to why Pitt pulled those upsets was the home-court advantage. This team plays better at home, and the Petersen Event Center is starting to resemble the home-court advantage Pitt had throughout most of the building’s history.
EA: Like BC, Pitt is pretty banged up right now. Who's expected to be in the rotation tonight?
Pitt is actually down to 10 scholarship players for the remainder of the season. The Panthers started with 12 players, but two guys transferred midseason after they rarely saw the floor. Both guys were holdovers from the Kevin Stallings regime.
That sets Pitt down to ten, but Ellison is out and sophomore forward Samson George rarely sees any action at all. So it will be an eight-man rotation tonight. Johnson and McGowens will start in the backcourt. Seniors Jared Wilson-Frame and Sidy N’dir will likely join the two freshman in the starting lineup, giving the Panthers a four-guard lineup. Sophomore center Terrell Brown will round out the starting-five.
Au’Diese Toney has been battling through a hand injury of late, but he has started almost every game this season before that occurred. Khameron Davis, a 6-foot-4 guard, and Knee Chukwuka a 6-foot-9 forward round out the rotation.
Pitt is not a very deep team, so the injury to Ellison actually really puts a dent into the rotation.
EA: This feels like a must-win game for head coach Jim Christian and the Eagles. Is there a similar sense with the Pitt fan base in the midst of the team's current seven-game losing streak?
Pitt was picked last in the ACC and they are a team reliant on freshman. It is also coming off a season in which the team went 0-18 in conference play, so needless to say expectations weren’t overly high coming into this season.
The wins over Louisville and Florida State, however, really rallied the fan base and put some expectations on the team. While the team is typically an underdog in every game, there have been frustrations following every loss this season, so Jeff Capel has changed the culture from apathetic to highly invested in a short amount of time, and I think that’s a good thing because last year was really a dire situation.
Is tonight a must-win for Pitt? Probably not, as the team’s postseason hopes are all but over, but I think for the mental state of the team and for building confidence purposes, I think they could use this one. Pitt had a heartbreaking overtime loss to Wake Forest last week, and lost by three to North Carolina State at home over the weekend. The team is knocking on the door, and I think Boston College is a winnable game for sure.
